Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 39: Oilers win special teams battle to push Stars to brink

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are back, which means that for the next two months, we’ll get non-stop exciting action in the NHL as we witness history in another team looking to win a championship. Here at Daily Faceoff, we’ll be keeping you in the loop of everything that happened in the playoffs, every day until the Stanley Cup is hoisted in June.

Game 4 saw quite a few lineup changes for both teams. The Edmonton Oilers saw the return of Calvin Pickard to the lineup, although with the recent performance of Stuart Skinner, he was only playing as the backup. Along with that, Viktor Arvidsson was back in the lineup in the wake of Connor Brown’s injury. Meanwhile, Roope Hintz returned for the Dallas Stars, with Evgeny Dadonov drawing out in his place.

The Stars were in desperate need of a good start, down 2-1 in the series with the threat of going home facing elimination. With the past two games seeing momentum swing in favour of the Oilers (and even most of Dallas’ Game 1 win), they had to find a way to swing it back their way like they did in the third period of Game 1.

The Stars did accomplish that to an extent in the first period, outshooting the Oilers 16-10, out-chancing them 20-8 and even putting up a whopping 2.08 expected goals at even strength. But that still wasn’t enough to change the momentum, as the Stars only penalty in the period resulted in a power play, which the Oilers proceeded to score on courtesy of Leon Draisaitl.

Of course, it wasn’t all good news for the Oilers to start this game. Before that opening goal, Zach Hyman was hit hard by Mason Marchment and knocked out of the game. And then early in the second period, the Stars tied the game on the power play with a goal from Jason Robertson.

But just a few minutes after Robertson tied it, the Stars penalty kill hurt themselves again. Marchment was called for interference on their only penalty of the period, and the Oilers cashed in again, this time thanks to Corey Perry, and they had the 2-1 lead.

WORM GIVES OILERS THE LEAD 🚨🪱 pic.twitter.com/9Ko0MDW1UN

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) May 28, 2025

And that was just about it. Not only did the Stars not score again, they didn’t really get any chances. Remember when they had 2.08 expected goals in the first period? They had 0.61 for the remaining two, and just three scoring chances. It was a defensive masterclass from the Oilers to close out the game, topped off with empty net goals from Kasperi Kapanen and Adam Henrique.

With that, the Oilers took the game by a score of 4-1, and now have a 3-1 series lead, with the chance to head to Dallas on Thursday and advance to their second consecutive Stanley Cup Final.